Haig was born in Edinburgh on 19 June 1861. He was born into a wealthy family that had good business. When Haig was younger he went to a good school and in 1884 went to Royal Military Academy at Sand Hurst. He first served as a Calvary Commander; however this experience was not useful in the battle of Somme because it was trench warfare which was a new kind of war so he couldn’t use the same tactics. He was also a celebrated commander of the Boer war, but the Africans were weaker and were poorer equipped.

The Battle of Somme started in July 1st 1916. It was planned as a joint French and British operation. The idea originally came from the French Commander-in-Chief called Joseph Joffre and Haig accepted it. The battle was launched on the 1st July 1916. The French achieved there objective but whilst doing this there were 7000 casualties however the British weren’t successful and on the first day they had 60 000 casualties, including 20 000 dead however in the final result the British did win. The main plan of action was to kill all the German soldiers and destroy the German trenches.

Many people give General Haig the reputation as “The Butcher of the Somme” but many people would disagree with this. I think that he shouldn’t get the reputation as “The Butcher of the Somme” but he did do a lot of things not as well as he should have done. There are many reasons why people blame General Haig for the failure of the battle. Throughout the battle Haig continued to use the same tactics over and over again even thought the tactic kept failing. The objective of this tactic was to wear the German army down. Another one of Haig’s failing plans was to get the soldiers to walk slowly so they could stay in a straight line towards the enemies, because of this it was easy an easy target for the German Gunners, which resulted in more casualties and deaths.

The attacks weren’t very well rehearsed and said to be unrealistic so the soldiers weren’t properly ready. General...

YOU MAY ALSO FIND THESE DOCUMENTS HELPFUL

...Does General Haigdeserve to be remembered as the Butcher of the Somme?
In 1st July 1916, the river the Somme in France is used as the fighting tool place and war has begun near the river so the war is named. During the period, General DouglasHaig is the Commander-in-Chief for the British Army so he took full control of the attack. The General wanted to make a breakthough to get through the German trenches and defeat the army once and for all. What he planned to do is to firstly smash the German’s trenches with a bombardment of shell fire to last for 7 days and nights. Secondly, he would send infantry to capture what was left of the trenches. Thirdly, he would send cavalry through the captured trenches into the free land the other side.
Haig gathered nearly 700,000 men for the attack but most of them were lack of experiences. Even though they received a rehearsal, it is not realistic and coarsely. Later, Haig had to change his plan because of problems related to Verdun in France that delayed his attack for one month until August. The British Army had two targets which were the trenches themselves and to cut up the barbed wire. British went over the top to attack the German’s trenches and the battle went on for 140 days. Thousands and thousands of men were shot during...

...Does General Haigdeserve the nickname ‘Butcher of the Somme’?
Assessments of the Battle
Events leading to the battle | Back to top |
The main job of the British forces in 1914 and 1915 was to support the French. This is because the British Army was very small. In 1914, it had about 250,000 men scattered around the British Empire. In that year, the British sent 5 divisions (a division was usually about 15,000 men) to the front in France. The French army had 72 divisions and the Germans had 122 divisions. The French and Germans both had a system of compulsory military service. This meant all men served about 2 years in the army and gained some basic training and experience. Britain had no such system.
Once war began, the British Army recruited furiously. By 1916, the army was about 1.5 million strong, but there were problems. The expansion was done at breakneck speed using enthusiastic but raw recruits. They had a little over a year's training and virtually no combat experience. Worse still, they were desperately short of experienced officers. More experienced soldiers knew how to find the best cover, how to advance as safely as possible and what to do if their commanding officer was killed (common in trench warfare).
General Sir DouglasHaig, British Commander-in-Chief on the western front, was not really ready to attack in mid-1916. He wanted to wait...

...General Haigdeserve to be remembered as ‘the butcher of the Somme’?
General Haig was a famous general who won the last war in the First World War, he should be remembered as a hero, but why do people reckon him to be the opposite, as a butcher? As the ‘Butcher of the Somme ’?
In my point of view, I think of general as a butcher rather than a hero, for he, in the first battle in the First World War, the battle of Somme, he used 420000 soldiers to defeat 500000 Germans soldiers and gain 10 kilometers of ground, not counting the French that used 200000 soldiers.
His plans were all flawed, first he had the one week long artillery strike but what he did not think of was that Germans were humans and that humans have brains and knows how to change their plans. They dug trenches deeper and were unharmed by the attempt. Secondly, they forgot that artillery shells only exploded on impact and will send out shrapnel and that this will not destroy the barb wires but only make them fly up and tangle up more, causing a disadvantage to his own troops. The ways the British soldiers walk up to the Germans were too unrealistic and not professional. Walking up to the enemy and not taking cover? Ridiculous! Also if General Haig was with the soldiers together...

...﻿Did General Haigdeserve to be the Butcher of the Somme?
1 July 1916, Battle of Somme started, fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place on either side of the River Somme in France, and it ended on 18 November 1916. The battle caused millions of deaths and injuries between both sides. The war changed peoples’ thinking towards war. From a great adventure, to a bloody event.
General DouglasHaig was one of the commanders from the British army in the Battle of Somme, the battle with one of the highest casualties in British military history. Some people called him “ButcherHaig” or “Butcher of the Somme” after his death in 1928, because he sent thousands of British soldiers to their death. But does he deserve the title? Or was he just doing his job and was there any misunderstanding in the battle? I will talk about the evidences and explain why many people view both sides and if he deserves the title or not.
The offensive (Britain & France) conceived the idea as a battle of attrition, attacking the Germans, the aim being to drain the German forces of reserves, although territorial gain was a secondary aim. On the first day of the battle of the...

... Title: To whatextent is it fair to call General Haig the ‘Butcher of the Somme’
The Battle of the Somme was important and crucial to the development of the First World War; and earmarked the final result of the War. Both the Allies and the Germans were extremely eager to make some achievement in order to boost the morale of the armed forces and the confidence of their own countrymen after a long period of stalemate in the various battle fronts. They were both prepared to exhaust all means to win over the other.
General Haig was definitely under very great pressure from the British Government as well as his allies to determine and win the war as quickly as possible. He would have thought that if the war was dragged on further even much higher casualties would likely be resulted as the trench warfare being adopted at that time often involved heavy casualties. There was also a possibility that if the war was allowed to drag on, the balance would be tipped over so much that Britain itself might also be turned into a battlefield. I agreed the general might have been ruthless in subjecting so many young people to the risk of life; but after second thought, war invariably involves casualties and the enemy also suffered equally heavy casualties, his ruthlessness was inevitable and may be justified to a certain extent. Should...

...general haig the butcher of the Somme?'
Introduction
General Haig's title of 'butcher of the Somme' originated after the First World War, when, due to a large number of casualties Britain suffered from the war and mostly the Somme. The people of Britain wanted someone to blame. This was a coping mechanism in which people could deal with the loss of the 'lost generation'. Feild MarshallHaig has often been called the butcher of the Somme because 20000 soldiers died on the first day of the battle, and a further 40000 were injured. The battle of the Somme was one of the 6 blodiest battles of world war one, and resulted in more British dead than any battle before it. One canadian Battalion lost 700 out of 850 men in the battle of the Somme. Stories started to reach home of the heavy casulty losses and the awful conditions n the trenches.However, some historians disagree and argue that Haig was not responsible for the human losses, because his military methods were in line with the ideas of the time (source 2, a book called Feild Marshall Haig written by Philip Warner an Historian). Death is a fact of war. Haig wrote 'The nation must be thought to bear losses. No amount of skill on the part of the commanders, no training however good, no superiority of arms and...

...DouglasHaig has been blamed for the slaughter of thousands of men who were under his control in World War One. The Battle of the Somme was one of his worst fights were 60,000 British soldiers died in the first day alone. After the Battle of the Somme, Haig got the nickname "Butcher of the Somme“. He was given this nickname because some people felt thatHaig had not cared how much ground was gained for the heavy loss of British life.
420,000 British casualties
200,000 French casualties
500,000 German casualties
The Battle of the Somme started with a weeklong artillery bombardment of the German lines. 1,738,000 shells were fired at the Germans. The logic behind this was that the artillery guns would destroy the German trenches and barbed wire placed in front of the trenches. Haig genuinely felt that this tactic would work. He had been advised that barbed wire in No Man’s Land would be destroyed by the shells.
More German soldiers died than British soldiers at the Battle of the Somme. Surely this shows that Haig’s plan was partially successful!
The Battle of the Somme was not the first time Haig had tried the tactic of bombardment. Haig continued to send men into the Somme battlefield for four months even when it was obvious...

...07/10/12
How far does General Haigdeserve to be known as ‘The Butcher of the Somme’?
The Battle of the Somme was the most costly battle in terms of casualties every in the history of British Military. A decisive breakthrough was needed by the allies after 2 years of stalemate on the Western Front however after the first day of fighting at the Somme, it became very clear that the artillery bombardment had fail to smash German defences and barbed wire and so there were 60000 casualties on the 1/7/1916. General Haig had the authority to stop the battle; however he didn’t resulting in huge losses over the next 4 months at the Somme. He prolonged the battle unnecessarily when failure became obvious and therefore deserveshis name as ‘butcher of the Somme.’
Some historians believe he doesn’t deserve this name because he was just doing his job as a general and death is an inevitable part of war and loss of men is a consequence of any decision made by Haig.
There had been stalemate on the western front for 2 years and the Germans were still on French soil. An attack was needed in an attempt to push the Germans out of France and bring the war to a close. Haig had the right intentions in trying to do this and this is one of the reasons he...

Study Tools

Company

Follow

{"hostname":"studymode.com","essaysImgCdnUrl":"\/\/images-study.netdna-ssl.com\/pi\/","useDefaultThumbs":true,"defaultThumbImgs":["\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_1.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_2.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_3.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_4.png","\/\/stm-study.netdna-ssl.com\/stm\/images\/placeholders\/default_paper_5.png"],"thumb_default_size":"160x220","thumb_ac_size":"80x110","isPayOrJoin":false,"essayUpload":false,"site_id":1,"autoComplete":false,"isPremiumCountry":false,"userCountryCode":"US","logPixelPath":"\/\/www.smhpix.com\/pixel.gif","tracking_url":"\/\/www.smhpix.com\/pixel.gif","cookies":{"unlimitedBanner":"off"},"essay":{"essayId":36694873,"categoryName":"Historical Figures","categoryParentId":"18","currentPage":1,"format":"text","pageMeta":{"text":{"startPage":1,"endPage":3,"pageRange":"1-3","totalPages":3}},"access":"premium","title":"To What Extent Do You Agree with the View That Douglas Haig Deserves His Reputation as the ‘Butcher of the Somme’?","additionalIds":[17,9,3,12],"additional":["Literature","Entertainment","Business \u0026 Economy","Government"],"loadedPages":{"html":[],"text":[1,2,3]}},"user":null,"canonicalUrl":"http:\/\/www.studymode.com\/essays\/To-What-Extent-Do-You-Agree-1306902.html","pagesPerLoad":50,"userType":"member_guest","ct":10,"ndocs":"1,500,000","pdocs":"6,000","cc":"10_PERCENT_1MO_AND_6MO","signUpUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/","joinUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/join","payPlanUrl":"\/checkout\/pay","upgradeUrl":"\/checkout\/upgrade","freeTrialUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.studymode.com%2Fcheckout%2Fpay%2Ffree-trial\u0026bypassPaymentPage=1","showModal":"get-access","showModalUrl":"https:\/\/www.studymode.com\/signup\/?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.studymode.com%2Fjoin","joinFreeUrl":"\/essays\/?newuser=1","siteId":1,"facebook":{"clientId":"306058689489023","version":"v2.9","language":"en_US"}}